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Author: Morris Berman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039307840X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
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Book Description
An emerging cult classic about America's cultural meltdown—and a surprising solution. A prophetic examination of Western decline, The Twilight of American Culture provides one of the most caustic and surprising portraits of American society to date. Whether examining the corruption at the heart of modern politics, the "Rambification" of popular entertainment, or the collapse of our school systems, Morris Berman suspects that there is little we can do as a society to arrest the onset of corporate Mass Mind culture. Citing writers as diverse as de Toqueville and DeLillo, he cogently argues that cultural preservation is a matter of individual conscience, and discusses how classical learning might triumph over political correctness with the rise of a "a new monastic individual"—a person who, much like the medieval monk, is willing to retreat from conventional society in order to preserve its literary and historical treasures. "Brilliantly observant, deeply thoughtful ....lucidly argued."—Christian Science Monitor
Author: Morris Berman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039307840X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Get Book Here
Book Description
An emerging cult classic about America's cultural meltdown—and a surprising solution. A prophetic examination of Western decline, The Twilight of American Culture provides one of the most caustic and surprising portraits of American society to date. Whether examining the corruption at the heart of modern politics, the "Rambification" of popular entertainment, or the collapse of our school systems, Morris Berman suspects that there is little we can do as a society to arrest the onset of corporate Mass Mind culture. Citing writers as diverse as de Toqueville and DeLillo, he cogently argues that cultural preservation is a matter of individual conscience, and discusses how classical learning might triumph over political correctness with the rise of a "a new monastic individual"—a person who, much like the medieval monk, is willing to retreat from conventional society in order to preserve its literary and historical treasures. "Brilliantly observant, deeply thoughtful ....lucidly argued."—Christian Science Monitor
Author: Kristopher Woofter
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477322833
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
Tobe Hooper's productions, which often trespassed upon the safety of the family unit, cast a critical eye toward an America in crisis. Often dismissed by scholars and critics as a one-hit wonder thanks to his 1974 horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Hooper nevertheless was instrumental in the development of a robust and deeply political horror genre from the 1960s until his death in 2017. In American Twilight, the authors assert that the director was an auteur whose works featured complex monsters and disrupted America’s sacrosanct perceptions of prosperity and domestic security. American Twilight focuses on the skepticism toward American institutions and media and the articulation of uncanny spaces so integral to Hooper’s vast array of feature and documentary films, made-for-television movies, television episodes, and music videos. From Egg Shells (1969) to Poltergeist (1982), Djinn (2013), and even Billy Idol’s music video for “Dancing with Myself” (1985), Tobe Hooper provided a singular directorial vision that investigated masculine anxiety and subverted the idea of American exceptionalism.
Author: Andrew J. Bacevich
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268104883
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 630
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Book Description
Andrew Bacevich is a leading American public intellectual, writing in the fields of culture and politics with particular attention to war and America’s role in the world. Twilight of the American Century is a collection of his selected essays written since 9/11. In these essays, Bacevich critically examines the U.S. response to the events of September 2001, as they have played out in the years since, radically affecting the way Americans see themselves and their nation’s place in the world. Bacevich is the author of nearly a dozen books and contributes to a wide variety of publications, including Foreign Affairs, The Nation, Commonweal, Harper’s, and the London Review of Books. His op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among other newspapers. Prior to becoming an academic, he was a professional soldier. His experience as an Army officer informs his abiding concern regarding the misuse of American military power and the shortcomings of the U.S. military system. As a historian, he has tried to see the past differently, thereby making it usable to the present. Bacevich combines the perspective of a scholar with the background of a practitioner. His views defy neat categorization as either liberal or conservative. He belongs to no “school.” His voice and his views are distinctive, provocative, and refreshing. Those with a focus on political and cultural developments and who have a critical interest in America's role in the world will be keenly interested in this book.
Author: Allen Frances
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062394525
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 331
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Book Description
“Unravel[s] the national psyche that brought our politics to this moment.” — Evan Osnos, The New Yorker A landmark book, from “one of the world’s most prominent psychiatrists” (The Atlantic): Allen Frances analyzes the nation, viewing the rise of Donald J. Trump as darkly symptomatic of a deeper societal distress that must be understood if we are to move forward. Equally challenging and profound, Twilight of American Sanity “joins a small shelf of essential titles—Arlie Hochschild’s Strangers in Their Own Land is another—that help explain why and how the Trump presidency happened” (Kirkus). It is comforting to see President Donald Trump as a crazy man, a one-off, an exception—not a reflection on us or our democracy. But in ways I never anticipated, his rise was absolutely predictable and a mirror on our soul. … What does it say about us, that we elected someone so manifestly unfit and unprepared to determine mankind’s future? Trump is a symptom of a world in distress, not its sole cause. Blaming him for all our troubles misses the deeper, underlying societal sickness that made possible his unlikely ascent. Calling Trump crazy allows us to avoid confronting the craziness in our society—if we want to get sane, we must first gain insight about ourselves. Simply put: Trump isn’t crazy, but our society is. —from TWILIGHT OF AMERICAN SANITY More than three years in the making: the world's leading expert on psychiatric diagnosis, past leader of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM (“the bible of psychology”), and author of the influential international bestseller on the medicalization of ordinary life, Saving Normal, draws upon his vast experience to deliver a powerful critique of modern American society’s collective slide away from sanity and offers an urgently needed prescription for reclaiming our bearings. Widely cited in recent months as the man who quite literally wrote the diagnostic criteria for narcissism, Allen Frances, M.D., has been at the center of the debate surrounding President Trump’s mental state—quoted in Evan Osnos’s May 2017 New Yorker article (“How Trump Could Get Fired”) and publishing a much-shared opinion letter in the New York Times (“An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trump’s Mental State”). Frances argues that Trump is "bad, not mad"--and that the real question to wrestle with is how we as a country could have chosen him as our leader. Twilight of American Sanity is an essential work for understanding our national crisis.
Author: Mike Moore
Publisher: Independent Institute
ISBN: 1598132652
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 542
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Book Description
Considering the historical background of space militarization and providing an overview of the United States' efforts to militarily dominate space since the dawn of the space age, this book argues that America must either ensure that space-related weapons are verifiably banned for all nations through an international treaty or definitively choose a policy of unilateral space dominance that may lead to an arms race in space and possibly to another cold war. Through a careful discussion of the history of space programs, their impact on past policies and events, the tactical and strategic influence of space weapons on the engagement of war, and the potential pitfalls of a dominance strategy, this book concludes that unilateral military dominance of space by the United States would be a supreme mistake and that it would make Americans less secure.
Author: Justin B. Litke
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813142229
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 293
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Book Description
A thoughtful analysis of how American identity has been defined and reinvented through history, and the ongoing debate over “exceptionalism.” The idea of “American exceptionalism” tends to provoke strong feelings, but few are aware of the term’s origins or true meaning. Understanding the roots and consequences of America’s uniqueness requires a thorough look into the nation’s history and Americans’ ideas about themselves. Through a masterful analysis of important texts and key documents, Justin B. Litke investigates the symbols that have defined American identity since the colonial era. From the time of the United States’ founding, its people have viewed themselves as citizens of a nation blessed by God, and accordingly sought to serve as an example to others. Litke argues that as the republic developed, Americans came to perceive their country as an active “redeemer nation,” responsible for liberating the world from its failings. He introduces and contextualizes various historical and academic claims about American exceptionalism and offers an original approach to understanding this phenomenon. Today, historians and politicians still debate the meaning of exceptionalism. Advocates are often perceived by their opponents as unrealistically patriotic, and Litke’s historically and theoretically rich inquiry attempts to reconcile these political and cultural tensions. Republicans of every age have recognized that a people cut off from their history will not long persist in self-government. Twilight of the Republic aims to reinvigorate the tradition that once caused people the world over to envy the American political order. “Probing the depths of the American identity, Litke provides a lucid and deft rejoinder to the ‘dangerous nation’ thesis that insists the United States has always been an ideological, imperial power dedicated to global revolution [and] points the way forward to a renewal of the best of the American tradition.” ?Richard M. Gamble, author of In Search of the City on a Hill: The Making and Unmaking of an American Myth
Author: George Marsden
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465069770
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
In the aftermath of World War II, the United States stood at a precipice. The forces of modernity unleashed by the war had led to astonishing advances in daily life, but technology and mass culture also threatened to erode the country's traditional moral character. As award-winning historian George M. Marsden explains in The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, postwar Americans looked to the country's secular, liberal elites for guidance in this precarious time, but these intellectuals proved unable to articulate a coherent common cause by which America could chart its course. Their failure lost them the faith of their constituents, paving the way for a Christian revival that offered America a firm new moral vision -- one rooted in the Protestant values of the founders. A groundbreaking reappraisal of the country's spiritual reawakening, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment shows how America found new purpose at the dawn of the Cold War.
Author: Robert Kagan
Publisher: VNR AG
ISBN: 9780028740577
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 942
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Book Description
"Kagan contends that the Carter administration's halfhearted intervention in Nicaragua was in response to American feelings of guilt for Washington's longtime support of the Somoza dynasty. The Reagan-era intervention, on the other hand, originated in American anxiety over Soviet encroachment in the Western hemisphere. Kagan recounts how American popular aversion to the employment of U.S. military muscle in Central America led to the administration's covert support of the contras and goes on to explain how the clash between the Reagan White House and Congress over "freedom fighter" funding led to the Iran-contra affair in 1987. Although the surprising electoral victory of Violeta Chamorro over the Sandinistas was widely recognized as a success for American policy, the U.S. remains caught in a continuous cycle of intervention and withdrawal in Nicaragua, according to Kagan. As a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, Kagan was a direct participant in many of the events described in this authoritative and definitive account of U.S."--Publisher's description.
Author: Berkley W. Duck III
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 0759120129
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Conner Prairie, among the finest outdoor history museums in the country, recreates life in 19th-century Indiana. It also was the site of one of the most significant controversies that an American museum has faced. Twilight at Conner Prairie follows the development of the museum, the conflicts of interest created by the terms of founder Eli Lilly's gifts, and the breakdown of the relationship between the museum and its trustee, Earlham College. Author Berkley Duck, who served on Conner Prairie's independent board of directors when the board and CEO were dismissed, provides an inside look at what went wrong at Conner Prairie and how it was put to right. Twilight at Conner Prairie is essential reading for anyone concerned with the survival of museums and the ethical obligations of preserving America's past.
Author: Anne Applebaum
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385545819
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166
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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document ... is Applebaum's answer." —Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian explains, with electrifying clarity, why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward nationalism and authoritarianism. From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else. Elegantly written and urgently argued, Twilight of Democracy is a brilliant dissection of a world-shaking shift and a stirring glimpse of the road back to democratic values.
